14 



INTRODUCTION. 



This, however, constitutes no nearer or other relation be- 

 tween logic and metaphysics, than that which exists between 

 logic and every other science. And I can conscientiously 

 affirm, that no one proposition laid down in this work has 

 been adopted for the sake of establishing, or with any reference 

 to its fitness for being employed in establishing, preconceived 

 opinions in any department of knowledge or of inquiry on 

 which the speculative world is still undecided.* 



* The view taken in the text, of the definition and purpose of Logic, stands 

 in marked opposition to that of the school of philosophy which, in this country, 

 is represented by the writings of Sir William Hamilton and of his numerous 

 pupils. Logic, as this school conceives it, is *' the Science of the Formal Laws 

 of Thought" ; a definition framed for the express purpose of excluding, as irre- 

 levant to Logic, whatever relates to Belief and Disbelief, or to the pursuit of 

 truth as such, and restricting the science to that very limited portion of its 

 total province, which has reference to the conditions, not of Truth, but of Con- 

 sistency. What I have thought it useful to say in opposition to this limitation 

 of the field of Logic, has been said at some length in a separate work, first 

 published in 1865, and entitled An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's 

 Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his 

 Writings. For the purposes of the present Treatise, I am content that the 

 justification of the larger extension which I give to the domain of the science, 

 should rest on the sequel of the Treatise itself. Some remarks on the relation 

 which the Logic of Consistency bears to the Logic of Truth, and on the place 

 which that particular part occupies in the whole to which it belongs, will be 

 found in the present volume (Book II. chap. iii. 9). 



